By Howard Altman
January 16, 2015
Speaking to an audience full of University of South Florida academics and students, the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command was asked to grade military efforts to date against the Sunni insurgent group Islamic State.
"B-plus," said Mark Fox, the first of seven speakers addressing the issue of extremism in the Middle East at a conference put on by the USF Center for Strategic & Diplomatic Studies.
But Fox, who took the No. 2 slot at the MacDill Air Force Base headquarters command back in August 2013, offered a caveat during his conversation with Mohsen Milani, the center's executive director.
"We can be absolutely successful at the tactical and operational level, but let me go back," said Fox. "When the U.S. left Iraq, we had no forces in Iraq after 2011. That was a policy decision, driven by the Iraqi government, which did not want us to stay, and a political sense that it was time for us to leave. The military advice that was given was not implemented. That was the way it was."
Fast forward to the summer, said Fox.
"We went back and checked on a number of Iraqi Security Forces," he said. "Many had not had effective training since we left, so there was a lot of dry rot. And there was a lot of cronyism. So (former prime minister Nouri al-) Maliki was not effective in terms of creating a cohesive society."
Islamic State, said Fox, was able to take advantage of "the fractures in that society.
"If you are a young Sunni guard up in Mosul and this onslaught is coming across are you willing to die for the Maliki regime?" Fox asked hypothetically.
Laying out the U.S. approach to the fight against Islamic State, Fox, the only active duty service member to have shot down an enemy aircraft, offered an automobile crash analogy.
"Our initial response, the way I characterize it, was like us coming upon a horrible car accident," said Fox. "And what is the first thing you do when you find someone who is horribly injured? You check their airway. Stop the bleeding and stabilize the patient. And I would submit to you that the name of this car wreck or the accident that occurred to Iraq was Maliki."
The former prime minster was "playing to his base," said Fox. "How do you play to your base in Iraqi politics? Doing atrocious things to Sunnis and Kurds and playing to the Shia base."
While new prime minister Haider al-Abadi "is saying and doing the right things," Fox said "the real test of the cohesion of the Iraqi government is still to be determined."
One question that remains to be answered is the role of Iran. While both the U.S. and Iran have a common enemy in Islamic State, and though the U.S. and Iran are working on a deal to stem Iranian nuclear ambitions, Fox said that there is no cooperation or planning between the U.S, and Iranian militaries.
But as neighbors, it is up to Iraq and its Shia government, said Fox, to determine how great an influence Shia Iran has in its affairs.
"We feel strongly that a dominant Iranian influence in the Iraqi government is not a health thing," said Fox. "They should be a sovereign nation."
Militarily, there have been successes, said Fox, pointing out that Islamic State forces have been rolled back from the Sinjar area in Iraq's northern Kurdish region, as well as from the Bajii oil refinery.
But he agreed in many ways with Army Maj. Gen. Michael Nagata, head of Special Operations Command Central, who was quoted in the New York Times as saying that we don't really understand our enemy.
"At a military and tactical level, we understand what we are doing and have a plan and we are being and will be effective militarily against their military capability," said Fox.
While it will take time because U.S. forces won't be directly involved in the fighting, Fox said that "the big question Nagata raised is this idea. What prompts young people to strap on suicide vests and walk into crowded markets? It's abhorrent to those who grew up in the western worldview in that regard."
The concept of a caliphate has an attraction to those who, in Fox's opinion, believe "we've not been good Muslims and we need to go back to the days of the prophet. What were the days of the prophet? Very severe. Very extreme. Selling people into slavery. All the things we have been speaking about are the tensions between those who want to live in the 21st Century and enjoy all the benefits and people who say they want to go back to the 7th or 8th Century. Yet there are 21st Century tools that are available for the people who want to go back."
There is, said Fox, "a civil war ongoing in Islam, and Islam is in great tension now, dealing with antiquity versus modernity...My personal view is that we are watching great tension in Islam that has the west brought into it. But this is something that Islam is going to have to ultimately deal with."
There are other tensions as well as the U.S. and its coalition partners fight against Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria, all while having their own individual national interests.
One example, he said, is that Sunni countries like Saudi Arabia want to take out the Shia-backed Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad immediately.
But the U.S. sees the situation differently.
The bombing campaign in Syria is to help "shape" the battle in Iraq, said Fox.
"It's kind of a Hitler-Stalin problem," said Fox, "constantly dealing with one problem that is more urgent right now first, then we will deal with the other problem."
It's a matter of priorities.
"We do not have the military forces in the region to do all things at all times, so you have to prioritize activities and make sure you have a strategic patience to stick to your plan...we are doing that in Syria right now, executing the air campaign against the so-called Islamic State and against others."
Fox said that the Khorasan Group, an organization of al-Qaida leaders in Syria who have made direct threats against U.S. interests, are also targets.
"It will play itself out," he said. "The Turks and the Saudis say we want to go after the Assad regime right now. We said, 'let's do this before we do that.'"
The devastation wrought by the Syrian revolution -- about 200,000 dead, millions displaced, is reason enough for Assad to go, said Fox, adding that before he arrived at Centcom, he never believed that the use of force against Syria would work.
"Prior to my arrival, I was hard-pressed as a professional military man to say the application of lethal force by the United States would help change the situation in Syria. I couldn't think of a way that us, deploying weapons, would help. Then of course came the atrocity in August of 2013. The gassing. We were prepared to strike and didn't. But that was the first time I said, 'OK, this is an atrocity. A tragedy.'"
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